London's Lansons Acquires Intermarket

Lansons, a reputation management shop in London, has acquired a 51 percent stake in New York’s Intermarket Communications, financial shop co-founded by Matt Zachowski and Martin Mosbacher in 1986, to form an entity with fee income in the $17M range.

Tony Langham, CEO of Lansons, told O’Dwyer’s he’s known Zachowski and Mosbacher for a number of years through their work on shared clients and at the Global Communications Partners network.

He respects their diligent approach to client service, Intermarket's strong position in the financial sector and its ability to win earned media.

Another factor: the founders of both shops remain at their firms as Langham launched Lansons in 1989 with chair Clare Parsons.

Zachowski and Mosbacher told O’Dwyer’s the acquisition is a strategic rather than a financial one.

Lansons expands its footprint to New York with its first international acquisition, while Intermarket gains access to its larger partner’s video production, research capabilities and expanded practice offerings, such as internal communications

Intermarket will rebrand as Lansons Intermarket by June. Zachowski will serve as CEO and Mosbacher will be executive chairman. They will report to Langham, non-executive chairman of Lansons Intermarket.

Lansons is expected to acquire full ownership of Intermarket via the purchase of two additional tranches over the next three years based on the performance of the business.

Intermarket, which has 25 clients, ranked as O’Dwyer’s tenth largest financial firm in 2017 with fees of $4M.